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Some people like to build ships, others submarines, even others dream of a base on the bottom of the ocean. We all know building ships is incredibly easy, much too easy in fact. Building a sub or a base, that's a different story. We need to make them excessively heavy using lots of ore tanks. So I started to look at most parts and their buoyancy values. The game uses a formula which, as far as I can tell, involves basic part mass, density/mass of resource(s), volume and funny enough, sometimes surface area instead of volume. More about that later. The most striking conclusion from these tests is that there's no logic behind most of these parts. This can be solved by testing each part and adding a simple line to the part.cfg: buoyancy = 0 (or whatever value seems plausible, sometimes even negative values are needed). Parts I haven't included in the tests: Command pods/cores, I think we can all agree these parts need to float. Fuel tanks/SRB's. While most tanks are too buoyant, changing their buoyancy values would need some/lots of math and unfortunately I'm unable to do these calculations. However, I think we can all agree empty fuel tanks should be the source of buoyancy for all ships. Cargo bays - tricky subject. I feel they're much too buoyant but we might need to discuss this further. Maybe closed cargo bays (contents occluded) should be very buoyant, open they should sink. This can't be changed with adding a single parameter, my guess some code would need to change. One heavy offender is the MK3 cargo ramp ... you lower the ramp and instead of sinking, pushes the rest up. Wing parts. We all know they float, to the absurd. While I can see the logic of wings with empty fuel tanks floating, the rest should not. Structural parts like I-beams, girders and panels. We know they sink. Due to a problem with Imgur, I'm unable to include all pictures at the moment. More will come later. Test 1: engines. There are multiple offenders in this category. Some sink to the bottom as expected, others float like maniacs. The ones that float are the Goliath Rhino Panther Whiplash Terrier Mainsail Poodle Skipper Puff. Test 2: structural & control parts. Almost all of them have excessive buoyancy. All SAS modules float which is odd, heavy metal wheels inside a small enclosure. The Fly-by-Wire avionics hub floats, maybe it's logical because it's just electronics and almost works like a probe core. All adapters for rockets float as if their lives depend on it. Same with the MK3 engine mount. The structural pylon floats (0.2t), curiously enough the small hardpoint (0.05t) sinks. The Mk1 structural fuselage floats like bricks do not. The Rockomax Hubmax floats which is odd, 1.5t and such a small volume, considering all the internal reinforcements needed for station building. The cubic and octagonal struts float. Test 3: docking ports and decouplers. This is a mixed bag without any logic. All standard docking ports float. Looking at the fact in real life they're just doors without a volume, very peculiar. All Clamp-o-Trons float excessively. The 3.75m and 2.5m decouplers float, the others sink. The 2.5m and 0.625m separators sink, the 1.25m floats. The Claw floats like something out of a movie, barely touches the water. The TT38K radial decoupler floats as well ... odd. Test 4: nose cones, air intakes, fairing bases and fairings. Some very odd results here. A real life nose cone is hollow and open and would therefore sink. All nose cones in KSP, because they're not hollow, float like it's a horror movie. But let's forget that collider at the bottom. They should sink. Same story with the tail connectors. All air intakes float. Odd. Just hollow tubes made out of metal with some internal guidance for air. They should sink. All fairing bases float. Again against all logic. A complete fairing floats but is so happy it even bounces up and down. A decoupled fairing does what it's supposed to: it sinks. Test 5: Wheels & legs. Once again strange results. Of the retractable landing gear department, the LY10 and LY35 sink, the others float, both barely touching the water and exposing their naked parts towards the sky. Yuck. When I did the test again with wheels retracted, both the LY10 and LY35 became torpedoes, pointing straight down and traveling with speeds over 20m/s. The others stayed at the surface. Both non retractables float. All rover wheels except the S2 float. Only the LT-05 landing strut sinks ... but only when extended (?) Test 6: thermal. Strange results? You guessed right! So I mentioned earlier the buoyancy calculation sometimes takes in account surface area instead of volume. Look at what we have here. Of the normal heat shields only the 0.625m sinks, but not without ablator. The expandable heat shield sinks like a stone when closed however it makes a pretty good life raft when open. All fixed radiators float. Odd. Metal filled with coolant. They should sink. The deployable radiators are even weirder. The smallest one sinks, the medium just falls apart and the big one floats. When deployed, the small one floats, the medium still falls apart and the big one points straight up and starts bouncing off the water until it falls apart as well. I guess radiators are really allergic to water. Not a pretty sight. I don't recommend it. Test 7: electrics. Once again, no logic. All batteries float. Ever seen a floating battery? Me neither. Except a lemon. Also a potato. All solar panels float. It's magic, really. The fuel cell sinks but ... the fuel cell array floats! At least the RTG sinks. Test 8: comms & science Yep, no logic. All dishes except the 88-88, the DTS-M1 and the small antennae float. Both ore scanners float excessively. All experiments except the Mystery Goo and the Double-C, float. The lab floats but maybe too much. The science container shouldn't sink ... and guess what: it doesn't. Test 9: utilities. Realm of fantasy. Both drills. They float. Seriously. Both ISRU's float. The extendable ladders float. The short ladder however, sinks. The lamps float. All crew modules are excessively buoyant, especially the MK2. The launch escape system floats. The parachutes are the weirdest: the MK16-XL and MK25 float, the radials and MK16 sink with the MK12-R having the speed record: 28m/s! So ... what's the next step? In the future I'll update this post with adjusted values for all parts to make things ... a little bit more realistic and most of all: fun. If/when we all agree, I'll offer them to Squad.